Sunderland Accounts Silence Sells Club Short

Sunderland Accounts Silence Sells Club Short

Article excerpt

IF there is a mention of Sunderland's latest set of accounts on the club's website, it is extremely well hidden.

Nothing on the club news site, nothing when you tap in 'accounts' on the in-house search engine. This year there wasn't even a Press release to highlight the fact that Companies House had them.

Quite why a club that sent out all the right signals in the week leading up to the League Cup would take that attitude is unclear. Maybe they didn't want people to know. Maybe they think it's not really that newsworthy. For the record, the club posted an eye-watering PS23million loss for the last year.

This was despite cutting costs by some PS9million and slashing the wage bill from a slightly worrying PS63million to a more manageable PS57million. Turnover also fell.

There were positives though: these accounts were posted for the year before the new and improved TV deal kick in, so some of the shortfall will be absorbed by that. If Sunderland stay in the Premier League they should be in a much healthier position next year, although getting them back into black might still be a few years away given the uncertainty of the last year. …